The 25^TH MGSA SYMPOSIUM

Dear Members and Supporters of the MGSA,

On behalf of the Modern Greek Studies Association of North America (MGSA), we ask you to consider making a financial contribution to the 25th International Symposium to be held at Stockton University in Galloway, NJ, on November 2-5 2017.  Your gift will make it possible for graduate students whose abstract has been accepted to participate fully in the Symposium.  Graduate students constitute the future of our field, but they face severe challenges in finding academic employment in the current economic climate.  More specifically, we seek to raise $9,000 for our graduate student travel fund, which will allow us to award a $300 travel grant to 30 graduate students.  Your contribution of any amount would be most appreciated and would, of course, be acknowledged in our Symposium program and on the MGSA website. 

The biennial MGSA Symposia attract some 100 to 150 neohellenists from around the world, who present their research findings related to modern Greece.  Members of local and regional Greek communities in North American share in the academic and cultural activities surrounding the Symposia.  Approximately one fifth of the total number of presenters are graduate students.  Our last, highly successful Symposium, hosted by Georgia State University in October 2015, saw some twenty truly stellar graduate student presentations.  Each presenter was supported by an MGSA travel grant of $300.  These (modest) travel grants have become critical given today’s shrinking university support for graduate student research and travel.  

The biennial MGSA Symposium is one of the MGSA’s highly acclaimed initiatives.  First organized in 1968, the Symposium is as old as the MGSA and is, like all initiatives of our volunteer-driven professional association, organized by scholars in North America representing the human and social sciences, the arts and professional schools.  In addition to the Symposia, the MGSA publishes the well-reputed Journal of Modern Greek Studies.  Issued biannually by Johns Hopkins University Press and now entering its fourth decade of uninterrupted publication, the Journal of Modern Greek Studies has become the flagship interdisciplinary journal in our academic field.  The biennial Workshop on Modern Greek Language Instruction exemplifies those activities of the MGSA that focus on undergraduate instruction and resource development.  The next such workshop for teachers of Modern Greek language, literature, and culture will be held on November 4-5, 2016 at Brown University.  We encourage graduate students to take part in all these initiatives, for they will become the MGSA’s next cohort of active members.  (For additional information on the MGSA and its many other activities, please browse further through our website and consult the section “Initiatives” among others. )

We sincerely hope that you or your organization will consider making a financial contribution to support graduate students presenting papers at the next MGSA Symposium.  A gift of $300 will support one student.  A gift of $9,000 will cover the entire expense.  We value our sponsors and hope to be able to count you among them.  Of course, all donations are tax-deductible (Gonda Van Steen and David Roessel are eager to discuss the practical details with you).  Please accept our sincere gratitude for the interest you take in our activities.

Yours faithfully,

The Officers and Executive Director of the MGSA

David Roessel & Tom Papademetriou
Local Arrangements Committee
Pappas Center for Hellenic Studies
Stockton University